Everything is Fleeting
My process is methodical, planned out, and laborious, yet my works depict instants in time, instances in which change is happening and being violently put upon things that we look upon as beautiful. I juxtapose items that decay, such as flowers, mountains, fabric, and flesh with moments of violent disruption and displacement of land - explosions. Explosions reveal a built up tension and disperse energy in a limited amount of time. This leads to an organized chaos that seems to be a resemblance of our everyday lives and external influences.
In using paper as my main media I am taking a fragile, soft, pliable material for the purpose of its fragility. We tend to think of our communities, structures, and institutions as permanent things, when they are so often revealed to be fragile and malleable just like paper. Much like the mountains, and sculptures I have referenced in my work, paper changes over time. The structures that I have built will change in slight ways over time and that is ok. All things change.
Taking many components and building them piece-by-piece, mark-by-mark, make my process a meditative one. My explosions often consist of several volcanic eruptions and floral bouquets collaged together to emphasize a chaotic environment. In this day and age we are constantly bombarded by more invasive external influences. It seems that these influences are growing greater by the number and frequency. My work has always aimed to create a moment of respite from that chaos while depicting it.
ABOUT JOEY BATES
Joey Bates was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. He would love to identify as a child of the woods, but in fact he grew up just north of Seattle and is very much a city boy who can’t live far from bodies of water or wooded areas. He received his B.F.A. at Kendall College of Art and Design in painting in 2005. Post college, he has found his home in drawing and cut paper sculpture. In January 2018, he made the move to Stockholm, Sweden with his wife, who is half Swedish and a Swedish-to-English translator. As Stockholm is a city on the water, it meets his requirements as far as living situations are concerned. Bates plans to live out the rest of his days making art.
Opening reception on Thursday, November 21st from 6 pm to 8 pm.
FB : Exposition de Joey Bates
